Yesterday I took a day trip to the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kick Off (a.k.a ADZPCTKO, a.k.a PCT Kickoff) east of San Diego at Lake Morena with Daren. Janel is sick and stayed home. I had heard this was an event not to be missed but I had never gotten around to checking it out. I was mostly interested in checking out the vendors. Most of the vendors in attendance are mom and pop outfits run out of garages. They may be small operations, but they produce the lightest and most cutting edge backpacking gear available. Because of this, it’s rare to get a chance to see the gear they pedal except for on their websites. We also sat in on seminar discussing the evolution of backpacking gear with panelists including Joe Valesko (Z-Packs), Glen Van Peski (Gossamer Gear), Ralph Drollinger (Adventure 16), and Wayne Gregory (Gregory Backpacks).
I feared that seeing some of the ultra-light gear on display would ruin me on what I use now. I had this experience a couple weeks ago when I attended a presentation by Andrew Skurka and got a look at the quilt he uses. His Mountain Laurel Designs Spirit Quilt 30 degree bag is only 18 oz and is far lighter than my Sierra Designs Arrow Rock 15 degree mummy bag which weighs nearly 3 lbs. Getting a new, ultra-light quilt is now a gear priority before the start of the summer field season. But I digress…
Two items caught my eye yesterday. One of these I sought out and the other ambushed me. The piece of gear I was most interested in seeing was the Z-Packs Blast backpack. My current pack is the Golite Jam (the original version). I really like this pack and intend to use it until dies. That day is getting closer. Joe’s Blast pack looks appealing and is super lightweight (6 oz if I get it without the mesh panel). It’s fit felt very similar to my Jam so I think I found my next pack. This pack will eventually compliment my 4 oz Z-Pack Hexamid Solo tarp.
The piece of gear I wasn’t looking for but now am lusting over is the Gossamer Gear LT3C trekking poles. These are carbon fiber poles and weigh a mere 2.8 oz/pole. This is a lot lighter than the Komperdell poles I now use. I’d seen these poles online but figured that having lighter poles wouldn’t be that noticeable, but I was wrong. Now I’m ruined on another piece of my gear.
After we’d had our fill of ADZPCTKO, and all the people there, Daren and I headed out to do some hiking. We were going to go up in the Laguna Mts via Kitchen Creek Road but were stopped by a locked gate. So, we did an out and back trip on the PCT from Kitchen Creek Road to Boulder Oaks Road and back, about 8 miles. It was a peasant day for a hike and the wildflowers were fantastic thanks to a wet winter. Kitchen Creek was flowing strongly (almost roaring), which is unusual for any stream in Southern California.
Finally, I’ll hopefully be posting more updates to the blog once field season starts and I’m out hiking around a lot more. Also, I promised Luke Gibson I'd link to his website so he can climb on to the front page of Google. So, click on his name and check out his research.
